The Skin I'm In

The Lush Scandal

As a customer of Lush for several years the wording on its shower gels and other items gave me nothing more than a slight chuckle and then were quickly forgotten about. However fast forward to Christmas 2016 and a scandal seems to have emerged with articles in both The Sun and The Mirror.The articles in question both concern Snow Fairy however the offending instructions are featured on several other shower gels in one way or another. The offending instructions in question are: “How to use- If you really don’t know how we suggest you find someone you really like and invite them into the shower with you to demonstrate.”

The customers in the articles both claim to have bought the Snow Fairy gift set for younger female family members aged 8 and 12 respectively. The claims they make against the wording vary from stating the words are too sexually suggestive for a gift set that appears to be aimed at children, to comparing it to an Ann Summers product, to stating the product could encourage full on paedophilia. That’s right parents that sweet smelling shower gel is going to increase the chance of your child being sexually abused, are these people being serious.

Part of the reason this story seems to have caught on so quickly appears to be sheer greed by certain members of the general public. In all fairness a lot of people did read the story in pure shock that it was even newsworthy others however appeared to have caught sight of the fact that the lady was offered 2 free bath bombs as compensation. This appears to have lead certain Lush customers to pretend they were offended too in order to try and get free bath bombs for themselves. That’s right this whole story snowballed because people wanted £10 worth of free product.

Indeed conversations which I saw happening on Facebook were people discussing with one another how they were going to complain to Lush in order to get the free bath bombs too because they deserved them too because they were so offended. People were threatening to complain in store, comments were left on the Lush UK Facebook page and who knows how many ‘offended people’ emailed customer services with there complaints. I personally hope Lush doesn’t remove these tongue in cheek instructions from its products as its part of their brand identity which doesn’t appear to have ever been a problem previously.

As an end note I personally don’t tend to shower I prefer a nice soak in the bath I also have a 3 year old daughter. Now I did indeed share a bath with my 3 year old and she didn’t know how to use Snow Fairy so we shared a bath and I showed her how to use the product and I’d like to think I’m someone she really likes. Which goes to show if you go out looking to be offended it is very easy to be offended and fall into a ‘wont somebody think of the children’ mentality. My only complaint however is that Snow Fairy isn’t available all year round but it’s OK as I stocked up during the Boxing Day Sales however that’s another story.